| Sumario: | The article presents information on the findings of a study conducted to compare the development of comprehension of English structures by Japanese and German children. According to some researchers errors occurring in the production or comprehension of the second language can be explained by the special structures of the language first acquired. Accordingly children with different native languages should show a markedly different developmental sequence in the learning of English as a second language. However, other researchers believe that a child, irrespective of the mother tongue, will pass through roughly the same developmental stages in the learning of a second language as did children who were native speakers of that language. The study discussed in the paper uses two different groups of children, one having Japanese and the other German as their first language, but all living in Great Britain. The study found that the first language and second language learning bear a strong resemblance.
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